Monthly Archives: September 2008

A while back, I posted pictures of a dozen jumbo pineapple upside-down cupcakes that I made for a birthday party. I received quite a few personal inquiries as to the recipe and technique so I have decided to post it here.

I must warn you: these are not vegan by any means. I suppose I can make them vegan quite easily but I have not tried to yet, so I’m just going to post the recipe as I have received it. Where necessary, I will print suitable substitutions for the eggs and dairy.

I have served these numerous times for friends and family members and I must say, I get the best reviews from them. They are so moist and with such a tender crumb, the pineapple so sweet and juicy, I can’t imagine a better treat to serve to the people you love. There are accompanying pictures to help you through the process.

Please enjoy and feel free to email me with questions! To start, you will need:

wax paper, cut into large enough squares to cover most of muffin cup, but not necessarily all

6 Tbsp butter, divided (I’m sure you could vegan margarine here)

1 cup packed brown sugar

2 Tbsp light corn syrup

1 large can crushed pineapple, well drained

12 maraschino cherries, well drained

3 eggs (you can probably use flax eggs here, or if you want a little more tropical flavor, try bananas. I don’t know if I’d try tofu, though)

2 cups sugar

1 cup canola oil

1 cup sour cream (vegan sour cream would be fine here)

2 tsp vanilla

2 1/2 cups AP flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

Line your regular sized muffin tins with the wax paper, then spray the paper with no-stick. Don’t skip this part. It’s a sticky enough mess at the end without extra gunk to scrape so just do it. In a small saucepan, melt the butter over low heat; stir in brown sugar and corn syrup. Cook over medium heat until the sugar is mostly dissolved. Remove from heat, spoon a bit into each muffin cup; top with pineapple bits and a cherry. This is what it will look like:

In a large mixing bowl, beat eggs and sugar until thick and lemon colored. Beat in the oil, sour cream, and vanilla until smooth. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add to egg mixture, mix well.

Fill muffin cups two-thirds to three-fourths full. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 25 minutes or until the tops have golden brown edges. Let cool in the pan for ten to fifteen minutes. You want the brown sugar mixture on the bottom to not be a runny liquid anymore. It should be somewhat thickened.

Next, you are going to take them out of the pan, flip them over, and let them cool completely. There might be a drip or two down the sides of the cupcakes so you might want to put them on wax paper for easier clean up. They will look like this:

Once they are cooled completely, it’s time to take the wax liners off them. Be careful! There is no way to get them off without pulling of a tiny bit of cake here or there but they still look amazing and taste even better so try not to worry about it too much.

Start from the bottom of the wax paper and pull all the way around before pulling the top where the pineapple is. This is why you need to spray the papers with no stick spray. It’s going to look like this:

Once you have done this, take a knife and gently scrape down the pineapple tidbits and spread them on top of the cupcake where they belong, like this:

It is a little tedious but I promise that when you see people’s eyes roll back into their heads…it’ll be totally worth it. You should have a bunch of papers that look like this:

See how they all have a few crumbs of cake on them? It’s unavoidable, really. But the end result will look l ike this:

When I first received this recipe, it stated to use a fresh, whole pineapple cut into rings, but I decided to make the original recipe for only twelve treats stretch a little further by making them twenty-four regular sized muffins. Rings will only work if you want to make jumbos, which I have done before, and they were amazing, of course. There’s no real need to drain the fresh pineapple as much as the canned, either. You can use canned rings if you don’t want the hassle of cutting up the awkward, spiny fruit but still want to make these jumbos.

I’m going to try this week to completely veganize this recipe and I will repost with my results. Good luck and I hope you enjoy these as much as my family does!

Ps- if you are seeing pictures that look like they aren’t supposed to be here, please let me know. While uploading pictures to this post, I have the right ones, but when I make the post public, it keeps showing me pictures that I didn’t put up. Weird. And irritating.

That’s what I’m calling my post because I couldn’t think of another name. These things aren’t necessarily weird, mind you. But they are around my house, so there. Oh, and there’s cookies if you wait around until the end of my babbling. First, we have this gigantoid praying mantis that had me thinking of some crap-ass science fiction that my brother forced me to watch on a lazy Sunday afternoon maybe 25 years ago. One of my worst memories was being made to watch something called “Terror in the Jungle” about a boy who was taken by cannibals and just as they were about to sacrifice him to the god of whatever, the kid’s stuffed white tiger comes to life and slaughters the whole tribe. My brother was famous for making me watch things like “Kung-Fu Theater” or “Grateful Dead at the Fillmore East” every Sunday. And by making me watch things I mean he would sit on me for about two hours. Jerk.

Praying mantis

Next up, we have the most disgusting spider I have ever seen. Why? Because it was guarding my mail when I knew there were two more discs of “Entourage, Season 4” in there from my Netflix. God, was I pissed. My husband kept telling me to get a broom and sweep him away but I was afraid of hurting him. How stupid, right?

Spider

Banana spider

Now we have something that I have waited for for years…humming birds. Why, you ask? Well, a million years ago, while visiting my brother in Colorado, the house where he was living had a hummingbird feeder hanging out off the eaves of the front porch. While we were all standing around outside talking, about 6 birds came to feed off this thing. It was extremely cool. While in Maine last month for my family reunions, my Aunt Joan (pronounced Joanne, I swear) had a hummingbird feeder suctioned to one of her windows and they came to slurp nectar while we sat around watching. Then about two weeks ago, while sitting in Olivia’s playroom listening to her push the same annoying buttons over and over again on some ridiculous toy she got for her birthday that seemingly has no other purpose except to irritate the ever loving shit out of the parents who have to suffer through it, i saw hummingbirds in my back yard. I had no idea that we got them in this area. What did I do? Why I went to the Foster and Smith website and ordered myself an assload of outdoorsy shit including a butterfly house, a butterfly feeder, a bat house, and of course, a hummingbird feeder and some nectar. It only took a week until they came a flying my way to feed. Yay! I hope that all didn’t just make me sound REALLY gay. Oh well.

Hummingbird

In this next photo we have what will be the equivalent to whatever made Van Gogh cut off his own ear: A drum set for a two year old. What kind of evil jerkface buys one of these things for a toddler? Oh wait, that would be own husband, on Ebay again without telling me. “Look honey! I won this pink drum set for Olivia!” I wanted to bury him in the back yard. No one will notice, I told myself. He won’t be missed, I’m sure of it. The lovely irony is that she keeps waking him up with it every morning. Sucka!!!

Olivia and her drums

As stated in my previous post, I will be slowly making my way through an ebook posted on Hannah Kaminsky’s blog that you can purchase for five bucks. She’s the author of “My Sweet Vegan,” an obviously vegan dessert cookbook. Duh. I’m not going to post the recipe here. If you want it, pay for it cheapo. The girl’s putting herself through college, help her out. You can part with five bucks. The new Alanis cd will just have to wait another week. Here are a few pictures of me making the “Steel Cut Oatmeal Cookies.” She said they would be a great breakfast treat but they didn’t even last until bedtime in my house.

Steel-cut oatmeal

Here’s the oatmeal I made for the cookies. It took half an hour to cook. Steel cuts oats look weird, fyi. And while they were cooking, there was a weird greenish looking discharge oozing off the top of the oats and onto the sides of my pan. I should have taken a picture. It reminded of something they might show you pictures of in high school health class, seriously. “This is what an STD looks like! Don’t have sex, kids!”

Dried apples

Dried Apples

These are the dried apples required for the recipe. I could have gone out and bought two bags at four bucks each, or I could have just peeled, chopped, and dried the pile of apples on my counter. Which is what I did. About two hours at two hundred degrees, in case you were wondering. Don’t forget to spray your baking sheet with no stick. Good times.

Pre-bake

I made a batch and a half of these and I got twelve giant cookies out of this recipe. In her regular sized recipe she says she got twelve cookies. Hmm…what did I do wrong? Were they too big? IS there such a thing? I did use my three ounce ice cream scoop to dole out the batter. Oh well, they were fantastic nonetheless!! And now they all live in our bellies!!

Oatmeal apple cookie

She also states that you can use whatever dried fruit you happen to have lying around. If you have to be one of those weird people who like raisins with your oatmeal cookie, then go crazy with it. One thing I would like to point out: you cannot tell this is oatmeal. It doesn’t have the texture of a regular oatmeal cookie. You know what I mean- the giant oat that sometimes you just wish weren’t there. It was a more smooth, more moist cookie. Just better, in this baker’s opinion.

Abbey enjoying her cookie

This is my middle child Abbey plowing through her third cookie. She loved them. “Do we really have to wait for breakfast to eat these?” Pay no attention to the fact that her glasses are missing an arm. We’re getting that fixed This week. They broke while she was at Six Flags Ohio with her best friend Taylor. Oops! And she wanted me to point out that her hair doesn’t usually look this…odd. Get a good look at her, folks. Someday, she’s going to cure cancer. Or at least solve all my foot problems. Abbey the podiatrist. I like it.

Next time I will do the “peanut butter bombshell blondies.” I actually already made them but they turned out awful so I’m going to redo them because one of about eight things could have gone wrong. Sometimes I like to think I know better than the people who write recipe books. I don’t. I mean, they tasted delicious, they were just kinda undercooked and mushy. I’ll get it right, I swear! Plus, I bought the rootbeer extract to make the rootbeer pudding I swore I’d never make. Turns out my friend Robert really wants me to make it. Sigh…

It has rained here for what seems like weeks. Not only is it making me severely depressed, but it’s making me into one of those people that gets depressed and then eats. Everything. I can’t stop thinking about food. I pulled out all of my recipe books looking for yummy new things to try that wouldn’t appeal to only me as so many of my recipes are kid-repellant. You see, I’m one of those people who, before I turned vegan, would buy a bucket of organ meats from a local butcher and fry them up with some oil. So you can figure that I’ll eat just about anything. Unless it has onion, then I’m out.

So, I’m looking through my books and watching the Food Network at the same time in hopes of seeing something worth veganizing. Sandra Lee had some wierd tarts on in which she just bought a can of giant biscuits, flattened them a bit, brushed them with olive oil, sprinkled Italian seasoning, dotted with sliced grape tomatoes and marinated, quartered artichoke hearts and dusted with…I don’t know, I think it was gorgonzola, then she baked them until they were brown. Wow, that was a mouthful.

Brownie Bites from Hannah Kaminsky

I went to my local grocery looking for biscuits in the can without any animal products and the only ones i could find were- believe it or not- the croissants. A usually very buttery pastry had not one hint of butter anywhere near it. All the others had either skim milk or beef tallow. Gross! So all in all, these were super easy and the kids liked them too so i get bonus points for that.

I recently downloaded Hannah Kaminsky’s “Lunchbox Bites” and am currently making my way through all twelve recipes. Here we have the ‘brownie bites.’ They were super yummy.

The next thing i decided to make was the ‘cashew cardamom cupcakes’ from VCTOTW. I bought this jar of cashew butter months ago. It’s been collecting dust and frankly I’m sick of looking at it, wondering what the hell I’m going to with it. I left out the cardamom because I’m a cheapskate. Plus, I couldn’t find powdered soy milk to save my life so I just made the frosting the way I make peanut butter frosting.

Cashew butter cupcakes

So, my love of Trader Joe’s has only grown over the months and here’s yet another reason: Trader Ming’s noodle boxes. They cost a buck and they take two minutes.’Nuff said. Carb-counters be damned! My question for you is this…how do billions of Asians exist on a diet of mostly noodles and rice and stay so damn skinny? It’s not about the carbs, fatsos! It’s about being active and not eating like every meal is your last.

Good news! I discovered an Asian market in Orland Park! The bad news? A lot of their stuff isn’t labeled. Like the label on one item said ‘ingredients: sugar, flour, rice, water’ and there were clearly some type of red beans and raisins or currants in there with that stuff. It looks like a lot of the items are flown in from Hong Kong or wherever they don’t have to be so descriptive on their labels and that makes me nervous. The good news? I got so many different sized rice sticks/noodles

Trader Ming

that I can live on pad thai and pad see ew for the next month! I also got lots of wrappers for sushi rolls, or in my case, not-sushi rolls. Woot!

Just a couple more things I wanted to share with the class. My oldest kid turned 16 yesterday. Please don’t remind me anymore that I have a sixteen-year-old. It’s not good for your health. I also discovered these adorable little mini cans of soda from Jones at my local supermacado. They come in four different flavors that I’m too lazy to get up and go look at, so you get a picture.

Jones Mini Halloween Sodas

People like Jones sodas because they use cane juice instead of refined sugar or high fructose corn syrup, but the corn people are now running a campaign to let the people know that in moderation, high fructose corn syrup is not bad. I don’t care really. I don’t drink soda except for maybe once a month and I figure the stuff’s not going to kill me. I made my own ketchup once, it was awful. I bought the organic stuff but it was way overpriced. When shopping for a family of five, it is damn near impossible to find the stuff I want without additives, hydrogenated this or that, high fructose nonsense, etc, without spending like $200 a week. Try to be me for a day, I dare you.

I burned myself

Oh, and I burned myself trying to steam dumplings in a pan without a lid. You wanna be me but you can’t be me.

My little stinker turns two today, and I can hardly believe two years have gone by since she tore me a new one. I’ll never forget it: my doctor elbow deep in my uterus because I was halfway through labor and my water still hadn’t broke, my husband demanding to have opening night football on the tv (it was a Thursday) and my Phillippino nurse telling me it was too late for drugs, “you go drug free now!” she smiled. The funny part is, I don’t even remember the pain from the baby because my hip hurt so bad from my ankles being behind my ears. Ah, but my hip trouble is a story for another day.

We had her party this past Saturday and here is a sampling of some of the food that I made for my guests. The only vegan fare was some tortilla chips with homemade bean dip, a couple big bowls of fruit, and veggie dogs. I have yet to cook vegan for a large group people so I’m still kind of iffy on what I should make. I asked my husband’s grandma to make macaroni and cheese and my own mother to make deviled eggs, so at least I knew nothing was killed for that, right? Ho hum, I hate being a hypocrite but I’m trying to do the best I can here without breaking the bank.

yo gabba gabba cupcakes

On a lighter note, I am signing up for school again! I started about 11 years ago and went on and off, here and there, but accomplished nothing because as soon as I started getting to the point where I would have to take a math course, I would stop going. I’m pretty bad at math, and really that’s an understatement. I’m going to finish getting what I need to get at my local junior college, Adam Corrolla be damned! Then I will probably transfer to Northern Illinois University, even though it’s an hour away in Dekalb. I can cram all my classes into one or two days or something. It will all work out. It has to.

A few things have happened recently that made me rethink my entire existence. For one, my husband’s company is closing and they are moving out of state. The good new is that won’t be happening for about two years. They have extended open arms to all their employees that would like to move with them, and have even offered moving money for each family. The bad new is, we won’t find out

delicious fruit with an optional cream cheese/fluff dip

until the end of October where the company will be moving to. We have been told three possibilities: Nashville, somewhere in Kentucky, or Ohio. Only Nashville appeals to me because I have built in friends and family there. Oh, and Ben Folds lives there and I’m a huge fan. Those other places can suck my balls. Kentucky? Eww…

Then there was my daughter turning two. So now I have to really think: Do I want to be a waitress somewhere else? And do I really want to do it for the rest of my life? Do I want my lil stinker to tell everyone about her mommy the waitress at “Insert crappy chain restaurant or Greek-owned place here” or mommy the writer? (Or “My mommy helps get people off drugs.” Addiction counseling was my alternate choice.) Ugh. It seemed like my life was in upheaval. What could I possibly do to make it all better? I thought endlessly about going back to school. And now, it’s on like Donkey Kong, people.

jumbo pineapple upside down cupcakes

I feel a sense of relaxation now because I know my life will have more meaning to it than poopy diapers and taxi-ing my teenagers back and forth to their friends houses. Don’t misunderstand- I love being mommy but I definitely feel that I was put on this earth to other things. Not to sound like a giant cornball, but I want to help people, I want to help animals, and I want to help our planet, if that’s even possible.

So, back to the food a little bit. The pineapple cakes were the best thing ever, I was told. I got the recipe out of a Taste of Home magazine that my friend had brought to work some months back when I worked at a particular Italian restaurant that will remain nameless. They would be super easy to veganize since they are made with oil anyway, but I forgot to buy vegan sour cream so I just used my Trader Joe’s stuff that said “owned by dairy farmer’s” on the side of it. I sure hope that’s true. Factories are for steel mills, not animals. The cupcake ice cream cones looked amazing but as foretold by numerous web-postings of other bakers, the cones were somewhat soggy by the day’s end. The Yo Gabba Gabba cupcakes were actually just a plain white

cupcake ice cream cones

cupcake with white frosting and fondant cutouts made by yours truly. I was also supposed to make some Blue and Magenta fondant faces and the characters from Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! but these alone took over an hour so I said to hell with it. I also made some German chocolate cupcakes with caramel pecan coconut frosting. It was my first time with the cupcakes and the frosting but I think I did a pretty good job. Also, the dip for the fruit was simply one jar of fluff, one package of cream cheese, and one teaspoon of vanilla, all beat together until smooth.

One of my favorite things to bring to parties used to be this dip that you can serve with graham crackers sticks. Here, I’ve veganized it for you. I’m sure you can figure out how to make it with all the animal ingredients if you really have to. Enjoy!

1 8 oz container of vegan cream cheese, softened

1 stick vegan margarine, softened

2 Tbsp brown sugar

3/4 cup powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

3/4-1 cup vegan mini chocolate chips

cream cheese dip with graham cracker

Mix the first 5 ingredients until well blended. Add in those chips. Let it sit in the fridge and get firm for about an hour. Take it out, firm it into a ball, wrap it in plastic wrap then put it back in the fridge until your party. Take out, unwrap, place in center of serving platter with your favorite vegan graham cracker sticks, or vegan vanilla wafers, or just eat with a spoon like my fat ass does. Voila!

So until next time, I will leave you with this quote, courtesy of my friend Dr. Jenn’s Myspace blog. It’s an interview with my soon-to-be third husband, Klint Kanopka. I’ve never heard of him before today but that doesn’t really matter now, does it? This was truly inspiring for me…

How important is vegetarianism to you? How important do you think it should be to the hardcore community?

I’m vegan, so vegetarianism is hugely important to me. I’m not a particularly political person, but it’s one of the causes I do feel passionate about. Everyone has heard the statistics and all the information on the subject is easily accessible. Therefore, there is no reason to still consume animals.

Anyone who considers themselves even remotely progressive should not eat meat. There is no justification for it. Society has progressed to a point where animal based food is no longer required for survival. It’s a simple choice and an easy transition to make, so any excuse you come can come up with just boils down to a blend of selfishness, ignorance, and lack of control over your own life.

I honestly find it difficult to respect the opinions of anyone who still eats meat in 2008. Especially in a community full of supposedly socially aware and intellectually proactive people, not expending the absurdly low amount of effort it requires to be vegetarian is an act of stupefying hubris. ~~Klint Kanopka

So, I entered into the Iron Cupcake: Earth challenge and having looked at all the entries, I kind of wish I had done something a little more creative. Mine was the lamest of the lame. But on a happier note, I already have two of the three prizes being offered so I’m not going to cry into my pillow or anything. However, for this month’s challenge- basil- I’m fully prepared to rock your socks. Just you wait.

Coffee buzz energy bars

Last night while looking through my Flickr friends uploads, I happened upon Hannah Kaminsky’s pics and she had a link for a downloadable recipe booklet called “Lunchbox Bites.” For five dollars you get 12 printable vegan snack food recipes for your kids or yourself or whatever. Of course I bought it, started downloading and before I even had the whole thing printed up, made the “Coffee Buzz Energy Bars.” I love coffee. They were good but I think next time I’m going to add in some toasted almonds because that’s how I roll, yo. Out of all the recipes, the only one I will never ever make is the “Rootbeer Pudding.” This one seems like it will trigger my gag reflex without ever having come near my mouth. I hate rootbeer. But all in all, a good buy. I’m going to make everything else, even the cinnamon swirl bread, and I hate making bread.

Lemon Garlic Pasta

I made this amazing pasta last week. After being on vacation for a week and not being in my own kitchen and not being able to cook, i was jonesing for some home-cooked vegan fare. Maine isn’t exactly a Mecca for vegetarians, with their endless barrage of signs advertising giant lobster rolls or lobster dinners for $11 or $12. The recipe is from “Eat, Drink, and Be Vegan” by Dreena Burton. I made my own tweaks, as noted.

3 tsp chopped basil (i used the frozen cubes that Trader Joe has. I love them. The recipe says 1/3 cup chopped fresh that you add at the end but I don’t follow directions well, i guess)

Cook pasta, reserving 1 cup of the pasta water. In a bowl mix all the ingredients together, then toss it into your pasta. If the pasta seems too dry, as mine did, add some pasta water. I used most of it because that brown rice stuff gets very sticky. I used my Parma! vegan parmesan cheese as a topper and away i went. This was so t angy and refreshing, i would highly recommend making it. At the very least, buy the cookbook, cheapo. She has some great stuff in there.

Jesus-y Lip Gloss- front

While in Maine, Robert decided to pick me up some Jesus-y lip gloss. Good for you, Robert! Keep pissing off the right wing pricks that started screwing up our country almost 8 years ago! Here is some of the stuff that it says on the package: (did you just giggle when I said package? Me too. Ahem.)

Be worthy, be noticed

Get tight with Christ!

The flavor is called “virtuous vanilla”

Look your Sunday best

Return lips to near virgin quality!

Jesus-y Lip Gloss- back

So you see why he had to pick this up for me. It’s effing hilarious. I love anything that makes fun of religion or just god in general. Or the elderly, the handicapped, the poor, the fat, pretty much anyone. I’ll make fun of anyone. If you irritate me, I’ll make fun of you too so piss off.

Oh, I also made these enchiladas. Super easy. You would have to have no arms and be blind in order for you to NOT be able to make this. Seriously.

2 cans black beans, drained and rinsed

1 can corn, drained and rinsed

1 can ro-tel diced tomatoes with green chiles (or other brand)

1 giant can red enchilada sauce

1 package (giggle) corn tortillas

2 0r 3 cups of shredded vegan cheese

Black Bean and Corn Enchiladas

Mix the beans, corn, and tomatoes together in a bowl. Spoon into tortillas, then roll ’em up like burritos (or just fold over) and lay in baking dish. Pour enchilada sauce over the top, sprinkle with cheese, bake for 35 minutes at 400 or until cheese is melted. Hopefully you got the vegan cheese that melts, that other stuff is goopy and wierd.

These were a little spicy but a lot yummy! I made big dish of these and we still have half the pan leftover for tonight. I win! Now, if you can find cheap vegan cheese or buy it when it goes on sale, this is a fairly inexpensive dish to make and it feeds a lot. And it’s moderately healthy because of the beans and corn. I mean, there are worse things you could eat, like dead flesh.

Obama cupcake toppers

One last note, we have an election coming up and I want you to think really hard about who you are voting for. My friend Natalie at Bake and Destroy has made Obama cupcake toppers that you may download for free. I did it last night. On her etsy shop, she is selling ‘special’ cupcake toppers in honor of that giant anti-choice idiot Sarah Palin. Here’s what Natalie thinks of McCain. I think it’s fucking hilarious so now you get to laugh also: “I would elect a Satanist over McCain. (In my dreams, I know.) I would elect a baby-sacrificing goat over him. Oh wait, that’s his running mate. I would elect someone who worshiped balloons. My vote would go to a bowl of jellybeans before it went to that war-mongering walking corpse.” She also referred to him as MummRa, which made me almost pee myself. If you are a complete moron and you vote for McCain because he has a woman running mate and you’re “all about women’s rights,” think again. Here are some things you should know about Sarah Palin (and McCain):

Last week was John McCain’s 72nd birthday. If elected, he’d be the oldest president ever inaugurated. And after months of slamming Barack Obama for “inexperience,” here’s who John McCain has chosen to be one heartbeat away from the presidency: a right-wing religious conservative with no foreign policy experience, who until recently was mayor of a town of 9,000 people.

Huh?

Who is Sarah Palin? Here’s some basic background:

* She was elected Alaska’s governor a little over a year and a half ago. Her previous office was mayor of Wasilla, a small town outside Anchorage. She has no foreign policy experience.

* Palin is strongly anti-choice, opposing abortion even in the case of rape or incest.

* She supported right-wing extremist Pat Buchanan for president in 2000.

* Palin thinks creationism should be taught in public schools.

* She’s doesn’t think humans are the cause of climate change.

* She’s solidly in line with John McCain’s “Big Oil first” energy policy. She’s pushed hard for more oil drilling and says renewables won’t be ready for years. She also sued the Bush administration for listing polar bears as an endangered species—she was worried it would interfere with more oil drilling in Alaska.

* How closely did John McCain get this choice? He met Sarah Palin once at a meeting. They spoke a second time, last Sunday, when he called her about being vice-president. Then he offered her the position.

This is information the American people need to see. Please take a moment to forward this to your friends and family.

Also, Alaska MoveOn members were asked what the rest of us should know about their governor. The response was striking.

Here’s a sample:

She is really just a mayor from a small town outside Anchorage who has been a governor for only 1.5 years, and has ZERO national and international experience. I shudder to think that she could be the person taking that 3AM call on the White House hotline, and the one who could potentially be charged with leading the US in the volatile international scene that exists today. —Rose
M., Fairbanks, AK

She is VERY, VERY conservative, and far from perfect. She’s a hunter and fisherwoman, but votes against the environment again and again. She ran on ethics reform, but is currently under investigation for several charges involving hiring and firing of state officials. She has NO experience beyond Alaska. —Christine
B., Denali Park, AK

As an Alaskan and a feminist, I am beyond words at this announcement. Palin is not a feminist, and she is not the reformer she claims to be. —Kare
n L., Anchorage, AK

Alaskans, collectively, are just as stunned as the rest of the nation. She is doing well running our State, but is totally inexperienced on the national level, and very much unequipped to run the nation, if it came to that. She is as far right as one can get, which has already been communicated on the news. In our office of thirty employees (dems, republicans, and nonpartisans), not one person feels she is ready for the V.P. position.—Sher
ry C., Anchorage, AK

She’s vehemently anti-choice and doesn’t care about protecting our natural resources, even though she has worked as a fisherman. McCain chose her to pick up the Hillary voters, but Palin is no Hillary. —Marina L., Juneau, AK

I think she’s far too inexperienced to be in this position. I’m all for a woman in the White House, but not one who hasn’t done anything to deserve it. There are far many other women who have worked their way up and have much more experience that would have been better choices. This is a patronizing decision on John McCain’s part- and insulting to females everywhere that he would assume he’ll get our vote by putting “A Woman” in that position.—Jenn
ifer M., Anchorage, AK

So Governor Palin is a staunch anti-choice religious conservative. She’s a global warming denier who shares John McCain’s commitment to Big Oil. And she’s dramatically inexperienced.

In picking Sarah Palin, John McCain has made the religious right very happy. And he’s made a very dangerous decision for our country.

In the next few days, many Americans will be wondering what McCain’s vice-presidential choice means. Please pass this information along to your friends and family.